On Saturday, more than seventy people were killed as Egyptian security forces attempted to disperse a large demonstration by supporters of the ousted President Mohammed Morsi.

And yesterday, thousands more camped in three parts of Cairo in defiance of a warning from the army, the very army that claims to have their interests at heart.

Today, Catherine Ashton, from the EU, met the installed President, the head of the army and the current leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who would do well to keep his head down, given the current soundings from the military about what they intend to do with the ousted democratically elected head of the Arab World’s most populous nation.

Ashton urged an ‘inclusive’ process.

That like other soundings from commentators – referring to realpolitik – will not do.

For Egypt is at a crossroads – if the Muslim Brotherhood are not allowed to complete their democratic mandate, no one in Egypt that is not from the army or the elite will ever have faith in the ballot box again.

That means 75 per cent of the population who voted in last year’s historic election for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, will have no voice in their own country.

Two more members of Bangladesh’s Jamaat -e-Islami party have been convicted of war crimes relating to the country’s secession from Pakistan in 1971.

That makes a total of seven – six of whom could be hanged, the other told that he escaped the noose because he was 90-years-old.

All but one of the ‘convicted’ members of Jamaat-e-Islami are accused of committing appalling crimes against intellectuals in Dhaka, alongside the Pakistan army.

Another – who was minister of social justice in the previous government – has been convicted of genocide and torture against Hindus.

More are to follow.

For their part the Islamic Party say they are being punished for siding with Pakistan. Independent observers say Jamaat-e-Islami are being gutted in an effort finish them as a political force in Bangladesh.

The War Crimes Tribunal set up by the daughter of the assassinated founder of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, has been criticised for its lack of legitimacy by international observers.

Hasina’s rivals, the Bangladesh national Party, say the current government is trying to weaken the opposition by crushing one of it key allies in the run-up to forthcoming national elections.

Of course, this is much more.

By destroying the country’s leading Islamist party, Sheikh Hasina is signaling that her country’s future lies with India and the West, at a time when it may be in the country’s long-term interest to look at China and Pakistan.

She, like her father, Mujib Islam, sees no place for Islam in the political life of Bangladesh.

As well as this, she is of course also ignoring what happened once Bangladesh won its independence – the appalling actions of Indian-trained paramilitaries on members of Jamaat-e-Islami and anyone they accused of siding with Pakistan.

In this context, the War Crimes Tribunal can be seen for what it is – the latest act of revenge conducted by a nation that really hasn’t faced-up to what really happened in 1971, and after.

And until that happens people like Sheikh Hasina’s father will never get justice, for it wasn’t the Pakistan army or Jamaat-e-Islami who threw his bullet ridden unclothed body onto the street.

With fears being voiced by Tony Blair about the future of Egypt as a viable state, with war still waging in Syria and the knock on effects that will have on its neighbors, especially Lebanon and Iraq, and with Libya awash with gangs and guns, what would a new Middle East look like?

Of course, there are some who have always argued that this was the original plan devised by George Bush and his advisers after the attacks on 9/11.

Remember, Claire Short, the then International development Secretary – she resigned because she claimed that the Bush project involved smashing all the powers all the way up to Islamabad.

And more recently, John Prescott, the former deputy British PM, appeared on RussiaToday to claim the West was fighting the Crusades against the Middle East and Islamic World.

And of course there are those who say that Islamist extremists would like a collapse in the Middle East to create a Khallifa.

Well, those who are arguing that we are approaching a new Middle East are pointing firmly to the establishment of an independent homeland for the Kurds, for one and to the creation of separate states from Syria, and probably Lebanon, as well as three states in Iraq and Libya, and a split in Egypt between supporters of Islamists and the rest, who according to the last election stand at 75 per cent to 25.

If you think the Middle East is complex now, imagine what this new vision would be like?

But, with America fearing the rise of Iranian power in the region, the collapse of the Middle East is looking like a stark reality with each conflict – old or new.

This is the face of the man who horrified the world, when he cut out the heart of a fallen Syrian soldier and ate it.

He is Commander Abu Sakkar, 27, and is described by the BBC’s Paul Wood as a stocky, tough-looking Bedouin from the Baba Amr district of Homs, with a wild stare and skin burned a dark brown by the sun.

“I didn’t want to do this. I had to,” he tells the BBC reporter, “We have to terrify the enemy, humiliate them, just as they do to us. Now, they won’t dare be wherever Abu Sakkar is. ‘

Friday has been designated as the day of rejection by the ousted government of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The military who say that their actions are not a coup almost immediately fired in to protesters who had gathered outside the building where they believe to be where the toppled President Mohammed Morsi is being held.

Three people were killed as a result.

And the newly appointed interim President has suspended the upper house of parliament which was the only functioning arm of government, after the suspension last year of the lower house.

And still this is not a coup.

Key figures of the Muslim Brotherhood are also under arrest, as the supporters of the largest political and social party in Egypt gather on the streets, many no doubt wondering whether they will come back alive.

What we are seeing unfolding on our screens is the struggle for the future of Egypt.

If no one says anything, the military will have been allowed to stage a coup which by any standard makes a mockery of the idea of democracy.

What we are also seeing is struggle for the soul of Egypt, a nation which has known decades and decades of corrupt and incompetent military rule and which after one year may never see democracy ever again.

No one has benefited from the army’s decision to oust the country’s first democratically elected President – not the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters who took 51 per cent of the vote in the national elections, nor the celebrating mob who at best can conjure up 25 per cent at the ballot box.

Already, there is talk of putting in place a strong man, someone who will be able to deliver stability. And that may well be the best solution to prevent this nation from breaking apart.

For no election can ever be regarded as anything more than a sham, after what has just happened in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood must have known they were living on borrowed time, but not even in their worst nightmares could they have imagined that they would last just one year.

Egypt has taken a step back today – the journey to modernity championed by Arab intellectuals has succumbed to the power of the mob, that Arab Street that the West has so warned us all of.

Perhaps, intellectuals in the West are right – the Arab mind is not capable of understanding a process as brilliant, yet as nuanced as democracy.

It hasn’t worked in Iraq, and now it’s completely failed in Egypt.

No one forced the crowds out on the street, they came of their own accord, and they will have to live with the consequences of their actions which could reverberate for decades to come.

Egypt may never recover from the army’ s prehistoric actions.

And as a result, we may just seen the beginning of the break-up of this north African state.

(Pictured above – the head of Egypt’s army Gen Abdul Fattah al-Sisi on state TV announcing that the constitution had been suspended and that the chief justice of the constitutional court would take on Mr Morsi’s powers)